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Okay, King Daniel, fair enough that Spock didn't actually build the "Jellyfish" to be a time machine. But it became one, and quite obviously so, and it strikes me as going against the grain of the character to not have him consider how that happened and whether he could use that to save billions of souls, before deciding rather illogically to use it in another Impulse Act of Revenge and kill a few hundred. (For an emotionless character, we have two films where Spock could have been played by Sally Field.)

But what about the billions who were born who never were in the other timeline? Fixing one timeline means that you're essentially destroying one.

Things had been changing for twenty-five years. It wasn't like both Spock and Nero were spit out at the same time and you were resetting a few hours.

Plus, the prime timeline is still there. Spock merely arrived in one that had split away from the one we're used too.

Odds are, we each have a different interpretation of what Star Trek is. If one of us was suddenly given carte blanche to produce our own version of the show, there would be tens of millions of fans telling us how stupid we were.

I think this is very true. If I was in charge of Trek, there would be many, many unhappy people. No doubt whatsoever.

I definitely want the main timeline back. I consider old Trek and new Trek separate franchises that happen to have a lot of the same character names.

But I agree with other posters, I'd take the *spirit* of Star Trek back before I took the timeline back. Exploration, idealism, a Kirk who solves problems with tactical cleverness instead of just shooting everything.

Plus, the prime timeline is still there. Spock merely arrived in one that had split away from the one we're used too.

But how would Spock know that?

From his experiences in Yesteryear and GOTEOF he would have every reason to believe that Nero's actions resulted in near two centuries of the Prime Timeline being destroyed.

Clearly, the much older Spock had revised his thinking after reviewing the latest theoretical studies from the Vulcan Science Academy.

Seriously, given that over a century had passed between "Yesteryear" and the Narada incident, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that a better understanding of time-travel and parallel universes had developed over the previous hundred-plus years!

It's not like Einstein knew about string theory back in the day, and that was less than a century ago.

From BillJ:
But what about the billions who were born who never were in the other timeline? Fixing one timeline means that you're essentially destroying one.

If this were a TV series rather than a set of movies, our character would have time to weigh that very question, to consider the alternatives, and then maybe reject taking any action with some logical basis behind his decision. But if he did consider these things - the very kind of consideration that made his character interesting in the first place - we're not treated to any part of that story, because there just isn't time. I can just imagine a producer saying, we have a roller coaster ride to manage; we don't have time for a theological seminar.

And that's sad, because what this means is that television is the farm for growing new characters, and movies is where they get harvested and exploited.

Plus, the prime timeline is still there. Spock merely arrived in one that had split away from the one we're used too.

But how would Spock know that?

From his experiences in Yesteryear and GOTEOF he would have every reason to believe that Nero's actions resulted in near two centuries of the Prime Timeline being destroyed.

Clearly, the much older Spock had revised his thinking after reviewing the latest theoretical studies from the Vulcan Science Academy.

Seriously, given that over a century had passed between "Yesteryear" and the Narada incident, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that a better understanding of time-travel and parallel universes had developed over the previous hundred-plus years!

It's not like Einstein knew about string theory back in the day, and that was less than a century ago.

He WITNESSED how everything disappeared in CotEoF.

Had Einstein witnessed a spaceship going faster than light, he would have re-thought his relativity theory.

__________________
A movie aiming low should not be praised for hitting that target.

From his experiences in Yesteryear and GOTEOF he would have every reason to believe that Nero's actions resulted in near two centuries of the Prime Timeline being destroyed.

Clearly, the much older Spock had revised his thinking after reviewing the latest theoretical studies from the Vulcan Science Academy.

Seriously, given that over a century had passed between "Yesteryear" and the Narada incident, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that a better understanding of time-travel and parallel universes had developed over the previous hundred-plus years!

It's not like Einstein knew about string theory back in the day, and that was less than a century ago.

He WITNESSED how everything disappeared in CotEoF.

Had Einstein witnessed a spaceship going faster than light, he would have re-thought his relativity theory.

He witnessed it, but he may not have interpreted it correctly. I doubt his tricorder was capable of registering the existence of co-existing parallel universes.

Remember, time-travel itself had only been discovered a few months earlier--in "The Naked Time." It's not like anyone was an expert on the topic back then. They were still learning the ropes.

By the time Romulus blew up, there'd been over a century of additional thought and study on the subject.

Clearly, the much older Spock had revised his thinking after reviewing the latest theoretical studies from the Vulcan Science Academy.

Seriously, given that over a century had passed between "Yesteryear" and the Narada incident, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that a better understanding of time-travel and parallel universes had developed over the previous hundred-plus years!

It's not like Einstein knew about string theory back in the day, and that was less than a century ago.

He WITNESSED how everything disappeared in CotEoF.

Had Einstein witnessed a spaceship going faster than light, he would have re-thought his relativity theory.

He witnessed it, but he may not have interpreted it correctly. I doubt his tricorder was capable of registering the existence of co-existing parallel universes.

Remember, time-travel itself had only been discovered a few months earlier--in "The Naked Time." It's not like anyone was an expert on the topic back then. They were still learning the ropes.

By the time Romulus blew up, there'd been over a century of additional thought and study on the subject.

Didn't the Guardian himself explain that the timeline was altered and needed to be restored?

__________________
A movie aiming low should not be praised for hitting that target.

Had Einstein witnessed a spaceship going faster than light, he would have re-thought his relativity theory.

He witnessed it, but he may not have interpreted it correctly. I doubt his tricorder was capable of registering the existence of co-existing parallel universes.

Remember, time-travel itself had only been discovered a few months earlier--in "The Naked Time." It's not like anyone was an expert on the topic back then. They were still learning the ropes.

By the time Romulus blew up, there'd been over a century of additional thought and study on the subject.

Didn't the Guardian himself explain that the timeline was altered and needed to be restored?

Hmm. Possibly, but I suppose one could argue that the Guardian itself is a bit of an enigma, so one needs to take its pronouncements with a grain of salt. It's a cryptic plot device that works in its own mysterious ways . . . .

....no. You said TOS/TNG did that. They did not really do any multi-episode ideas except for the occasional two parter. I'm talking about how it was done in B5, Farscape, or "nuBSG" as you call it. I don't mean an occasional two parter. I mean one episode leading into the next. Not reset buttons every end episode.

Um...yes. That's what I mean. Multi-episode stories...but a lot more than the random two parter. They all had a theme, but each episode did not lead into the other.

Except the other Trek shows didn't make it a point to say "OMG!!! Our ship is alone and lost in this dangerous unexplored area of space!" The others were business as usual in the Alpha Quadrant. The Delta Quadrant was the same thing.

Um ok?

The civilizations that lived there looked exactly like anything you'd find in the Alpha Quadrant. That is my point.

C.E. Evans wrote:

Sure it is. It's the society they come from.

That is the equivalent of someone walking around my neighborhood and saying "now I understand the society that exists in this state." Them walking around Starfleet HQ or visiting Earth Spacedock is not exposing us to their society.

C.E. Evans wrote:

It's not "just." It's showing other aspects of that fictional universe, to see other Starfleet crews and Federation worlds.

...no it is not. The point is that if you are going to show other facets of life in that universe, it can be done better and not solely from the view point of Earth.

The point, which got seriously derailed, is that Earth does not need to be shown for another show. And the old episodic formula has been done to death. Why can't one Trek show go beyond that?

For the sake of brevity, let's just say that I don't share or agree at all with your viewpoints.

__________________"Don't sweat the small stuff--it makes you small-minded..."

Okay, King Daniel, fair enough that Spock didn't actually build the "Jellyfish" to be a time machine. But it became one, and quite obviously so, and it strikes me as going against the grain of the character to not have him consider how that happened and whether he could use that to save billions of souls, before deciding rather illogically to use it in another Impulse Act of Revenge and kill a few hundred. (For an emotionless character, we have two films where Spock could have been played by Sally Field.)

You're forgetting that Nero was a very immediate threat. In order to figure out how to engineer a reliable time portal from the Red Matter (if at all possible), he'd need time - something that Earth and the Federation did not have. 47 Klingon ships and 7 Federation ships had already been destroyed and Nero was hovering right over Starfleet HQ when Spock boarded the Jellyfish. I'd say stopping Nero by any means ASAP was the logical option.

But I shouldn't stray too far from the topic, lest the moderator call me out. You do have a point, Daniel, in that throughout the franchise is sprinkled the ingredients with which any character can make a Magic Reset Button. And if the characters were smart enough to realize that fact... well, then, any jeopardy or danger they're put in, or any negative consequences they would ever have to face, would be reversed. Which could threaten to make the entire series somewhat pointless if handled poorly enough.

That said, I think it's ridiculous for any writer to saturate an episode or movie with ingredients for all sorts of Magic Reset Buttons (e.g., transporting between any two points in space including inside warp bubbles, tossing a teaspoon of red matter into space resulting in instant time/space wormholes, etc.), and then to force the viewer into accepting that the only reason the characters don't open their eyes and use these devices as Magic Reset Buttons, is because they're too stupid. It's not good storytelling to create magic plot devices for the express reason of moving the plot along and advancing the jeopardy, and that for unexplained reasons can't be used to simply resolve the whole issue (e.g., instantly transport Nero off the Narada and onto the Gorn homeworld).

But to do things like that they'd have needed to know the location of the Romulans on the Narada, and they didn't. When they beamed from Titan to Earth orbit, Scotty thought ("If the design of the ship makes any sense at all") he'd be beaming Kirk and Spock into an empty cargo hold. They materialized on the bridge, surrounded by Romulans. As when used earlier from Delta Vega to Vulcan, Scotty materialized inside the coolant system and almost died.

Then again, perhaps they could have used it to beam random chunks of Narada into space, or to beam a photon torpedo inside, a la VOY: "Dark Frontier" (but I guess I could argue that doing so would have detonated the Red Matter and created that massive final black hole in Earth orbit, likely destroying the planet)

Modern Trek viewers are modern sci-fi viewers, and their expectations have been raised since 1967 or 1987. Some of the silly bits that you've parodied in your videos (like the two-minute elevator ride from deck 1 to deck 2, which had me howling on the floor) are places where the seams are showing in a program that we all love anyway and have learned to laugh at and forgive. It's these glaring inconsistencies in the modern version of the product, which I believe make true fans wish they have those two-minute, eight-foot elevator rides back again.

DF "I'd Pay Money to See That Turbolift as a Six Flags Ride" Scott

Eh, I consider myself as truer fan as any and they don't bother me so much. But as you've read, I'm pretty good at excusing most of them - to my threshold of acceptability, at least

Why the Enterprise couldn't beam Spock and Khan from the flying garbage truck at the end of Into Darkness (because they were moving too much, or something like that) when in the prior movie Chekov beamed Kirk and Sulu out of terminal velocity free fall over Vulcan, on the other hand...

Plus, the prime timeline is still there. Spock merely arrived in one that had split away from the one we're used too.

But how would Spock know that?

From his experiences in Yesteryear and GOTEOF he would have every reason to believe that Nero's actions resulted in near two centuries of the Prime Timeline being destroyed.

But in "Yesteryear"...

THELIN: This change in the timeline will put you in my place, yet I am not aggrieved.

SPOCK: Andorians are not known for their charity.

THELIN: True. A warrior race has few sympathies, but one we do possess is for family. In your time plane, you will live and so will your mother. That is valuable. Live long and prosper in your world, Commander Spock.

SPOCK: And you in yours, Commander Thelin.

...sounds like Thelin's timeline will continue after Spock sets his history right (and in Myriad Universes: The Chimes at Midnight, Thelin's timeline does)

Of course I want a return to the original prime timeline. Not out of nostalgia, but because there is a lot of open ground there.

My problem with the idea is that, aside from longtime fans, no one would care and it could serve to just confuse people.

Personally, I wouldn't mind, but since we've made the switch already, I'd rather just stick to the new timeline. Besides, we can still watch the older stuff !

No one would care? You say that with such absolute certainty. Do you really think that with a good story and a good cast, that it'd be pointless to try it?

Who would it confuse exactly? People who don't pay attention. Does Trek really need to continue to dumb itself down to reach out to modern audiences that find old Trek boring? I agree that jumping back and forth between time lines can get a bit cumbersome, but Abrams' Trek is only two movies (and then one more). It is not equal to the 40 years plus that's been on before it.

And honestly, my questions to the people that say we should stick with Abramsverse...are... How and why? Because it is the latest Trek? Because Trek is "really about Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise. No one cares about the other crews." What nonsense. If Trek was only about them, Roddenberry wouldn't have made TNG. The other Treks, despite the criticism they got, wouldn't have lasted so long. Trek is not about Kirk, etc.

But honestly? What do people who support Abrams think is going to happen? Pine, Quinto, Saldana, etc. are not Shatner, Nimoy, etc. It is highly doubtful they'll remain with these characters beyond the third movie like the old cast did. And it is highly doubtful that if this franchise goes back to the television medium, that those actors will switch to television. Quinto used to be in television, but he seems to be trying to branch out from that.

So if you argue "fine...then...we'll get a new crew but in the NEW universe." Well...that kills the argument that Trek is only about Kirk and co. doesn't it? Unless we recast them again. Not to mention, based off of the movies, do you really think they won't simply rehash what was done on the old shows you all are arguing should stay dead?

I am honestly curious about those that want to stay in this nutimeline, what will it be about? What can be done in this universe that can't be done by going back to the original? Why did Abrams even split the universe in the first place? He should have had his time line erase the old and render this whole topic moot. I'd have been more for that then just leaving the old universe dangling as a "wink" to us.

And let me say again, I am completely in agreement that Abrams breathed life in Trek and literally lifted it out from the lowered coffin. I like that he gave the characters more humanity, instead of the sterile "evolved" humans of TNG. I like action (I am not against it). But he didn't do much else... Both movies were stories done in the old universe. There is nothing "fresh!" there. I also agree that if Trek were to come back (prime timeline or nu) it needs to switch up the format instead of being a TNG-lite.

(SORRY Belz. I didn't mean to go into a rant mode on you. It just happens. Was not ranting at you. )